It’s not easy to find an English Breakfast in Berlin, let alone a good one, but luckily for me one of my local restaurants, Café Feuerbach has an especially tasty one, so when I’m in the mood for a fry up I don’t have too far to go.

For 7,40€ you get bacon, two fried eggs, fried sausages, baked beans, grilled tomato, homemade jam and toast along with a little bit of salad.

Everything is delicious though it would be even better if the strips of bacon were replaced by thick cut rashers of back bacon but that’s not easy to come by in Berlin. For me the jam and the salad are surplus to requirements – you don’t order an English breakfast to get your fruit and veg in – but that’s a minor quibble.

Breakfast is served from 09:00 – 16:00. There are plenty of other options available and, this being Berlin, there is of course a breakfast buffet on a Sunday.

It’s not just breakfast on the menu at Café Feuerbach though, there’s also a range of salads, snacks and main dishes, including weekly specials, served between noon and midnight backed up by an extensive drinks selection.

I would recommend the Gnocchi, which is served with spinach, tomato and basil fondue, roasted pine nuts, shaved parmesan and pesto.

For anyone searching for that elusive English Breakfast in Berlin, Café Feuerbach is on the corner of Schöneberger Str and Holsteinische Str in Steglitz, equidistant from S-Bahnhof Feuerbach Straße and U-Bahnhof Walther-Schreiber-Platz.

Exploring the concept of urban gardening in Berlin, the documentary film, Speaking Gardens by Teresa Beck and René Reichelt shows the different ways Berliners are finding to use or create green spaces in the city.

Speaking Gardens introduces six different urban gardening projects across Berlin:

In conversation with participants in each of the featured projects, diversity is a word that comes up often. As do the benefits for children of growing up in an environment where they see their food being grown, which in turn feeds into a desire amongst people to know where their food comes from and favouring local produce.

In German with English subtitles, Speaking Gardens, is an educational and absorbing documentary that successfully conveys the multiculturalism and community feel of urban gardening projects in Berlin.

It’s the last day of February, the sun is shining and Eissaison (ice cream season) is about to start. No, you’re not dreaming, this is real life. Hokey Pokey, one of the most popular and in my opinion one of best Eisläden (ice cream parlours) in Berlin reopens on 28 February for its 2015 run.

Hokey Pokey is so popular that last year the owners were ‘forced’ to raise their prices and hire extra staff to appease the neighbours who complained about the ‘noisy customers’ queuing and eating outside on the pavement.

Navigate your way through the crowds of people and strollers and you are greeted by a freezer choc-a-block full of delicious looking ice cream options. Choose your flavour, how many scoops you would like and whether you would like it in a cone or pot and prepare for ice cream induced ‘ooohs’, ‘aaahs’ and ‘mmms’.

The Belgian Chocolate ice cream at Hokey Pokey is the stuff of fantasies. Luxuriously rich ice cream with large chocolate pieces throughout that will have you craving more the moment you finish.

Photo: Logo courtesy of Hokey Pokey

Hokey Pokey is open daily from 14:00 to 19:00 (check Facebook for current opening hours) at Stargarder Straße 73 (not far from S/U Schönhauser Allee) in Prenzlauer Berg – treat yourself to some of the best ice cream in Berlin.

Last week visitBerlin launched a new app, Going Local Berlin, full of hundreds of tips to help tourists and locals get the most out of the city.

“The new app offers personal tips from Berlin insiders”, says Burkhard Kieker, CEO of visitBerlin. “Our goal is to provide new ideas for the increasing number of repeat visitors when exploring the city. The digital guide will help visitors and Berliners alike to experience the city from whole new perspectives.”

Photo: Screenshots from the Going Local Berlin app from visitBerlin

Menu items on the home screen allow users to choose between ‘Boroughs’, ‘Orientation’ and ‘Map’ to find the tips most relevant to their current position or requirements.

Photo: Screenshots from the Going Local Berlin app from visitBerlin

Places in each borough are categorised as ‘Must See’, Hidden Places’, Food & Drinks’ or ‘Berlin Tourist Info’. All the relevant details such as addresses and opening times are included for each entry to make visiting as simple as possible, as you can see in the above entry for the Soviet War Memorial in Schönholzer Heide.

Going Local Berlin is available for iOS and Android free of charge in both German and English. Once you have downloaded the app you will need to download a data packet of approximately 125 MB but it’s then available to use offline.

More details about Going Local Berlin and links to the iOS and Android downloads for the app are available on the visitBerlin website.

According to the Chutnify website ‘the owner, Aparna Aurora inspired by her Indian heritage and travels decided to open her South Indian street food dream in Prenzlauer Berg.’ And I for one am pleased as punch that she chose Berlin for her restaurant.

It’s no great secret and something that I’ve mentioned before that Berlin is sadly lacking in the quality Indian food department. You can imagine my excitement then when I heard good things about Chutnify shortly after it opened in October last year. Unfortunately for me though, I had just moved out of my apartment in the area and it has taken me far longer than it should have to actually visit.

My first impressions were good: the welcome was warm and friendly; the décor colourful and simple but at the same time clearly carefully put together, an obvious advantage of the owner’s background in fashion.

I’ve been dreaming about the Dosas here and having studied the menu online had carefully selected the Tandoori Chicken for my debut meal, so I was a little disappointed to discover that the lunch menu is a slightly abridged version of the full menu displayed on the website and my dream dish wasn’t available.

I plumped instead for the Goan Pork Dosa and all thoughts of disappointment were banished when it arrived. The Dosa, a crepe made with rice batter and lentils and a staple of South Indian cuisine, was light and fluffy, the pork tender and bursting with flavour. The accompaniments offered a variety of complementary flavours, my favourite of which was the spicy Tamarind chutney, which brought a touch of chilli heat to the meal.

Having cleaned my plate I only wished I had the appetite left to try the Thali but that will have to wait for another time. I’ll also have to go one evening so I can try the Masala Wurst, Chutnify’s take on the Currywurst.

I’ve already been back with Steffi when we shared the Tandoori Chicken Dosa and the Keema Mattar Rice Bowl and both lived up to the standard set by the Goan Pork Dosa.

Many return visits are still needed.

The owner’s eye for design and attention to detail was again to the fore when my bill arrived in a plastic auto rickshaw taxi.

During my lunchtime visit a touching scene played out in front of me involving a simple and heart-warming act of kindness on the part of the owner so I can only hope that in this case good things happen to good people and Chutnify is a roaring success. Given that it serves flavoursome and well-spiced Indian food, something that Berlin has been crying out for it is hard to doubt that that will be the case.

Since I first saw a Wolf Beard stencil from Danish artist Don John, I’ve been hoping to see more of his street art in Berlin so I was particularly excited to hear he had been in town painting a huge mural for the One Wall Project from Urban Nation Berlin.

With One Wall, Urban Nation Berlin is bringing five different artists to the city each year to paint a mural. The aim is to bring diversity to Berlin’s neighbourhoods and help cement the city’s position as a recognised art destination.

Don John painted his image of a flock of exotic-looking birds flying out of a hoodie’s hood on the side of a building in Mehringplatz back in June of last year.

I’d recommend keeping up to date with Urban Nation Berlin via their website, Facebook page or Instagram account for news about future walls, exhibitions and projects. Who knows, maybe they can persuade Don John to come back to Berlin and bless us with some more first class street art.

]]>http://andberlin.com/2015/02/24/don-john-mural-for-urban-nation-berlin/feed/4Berlin Maps: Squats, Photo Locations and Craft Beerhttp://andberlin.com/2015/02/23/berlin-maps-squats-photo-locations-and-craft-beer/
http://andberlin.com/2015/02/23/berlin-maps-squats-photo-locations-and-craft-beer/#commentsMon, 23 Feb 2015 08:17:27 +0000http://andberlin.com/?p=9151I’ve got a thing for maps so it’s lucky for me that there are plenty of people out there finding lots of interesting ways to map Berlin and present data like the city’s squatted buildings, most popular photo locations and where to get craft beer. If you’re also a bit of a map geek, you should probably check out more posts on andBerlin with the Maps tag.

Berlin Besetzt (Occupied Berlin) Map of Squats

Photo: Berlin Besetzt

The Berlin Besetzt website is a great resource for facts, figures and maps about squatting in Berlin. A wonderful interactive map of squats can be adjusted by way of a slider to show the buildings occupied in any year since 1970.

Eric Fischer’s Berlin Photo Geotags Map

Photo: Local v Tourist Photo Locations by Eric Fischer

Eric Fischer has used Open Street Maps and the geotags added to photos on Flickr and Picasa to create a map showing the density of photographs taken in Berlin. On this map blue indicates photos taken by locals, red by tourists and yellow could be either.

Given its turbulent history and key role in the politics of twentieth century Europe it’s no surprise that when you say ‘Berlin’ to most people, they will think of the German capital. However, there are more than 100 Berlins around the world. Telling a day in the life of six of those Berlins, Worldwide Berlin is a documentary from Berlin Producers, made with the support of mbb, in cooperation with RBB and Deutsche Welle.

The documentary starts in Berlin, Germany at 6am as Uwe cleans the streets around Brandenburger Tor. From there we travel to Berlin, Russia, a small village on the Kazakhstan border; a small fishing village named Berlinhafen (Berlin Harbour) in Papua New Guinea; Berlin, El Salvador, where we witness the preparations for a beauty contest; an Amish community in Berlin, Ohio, USA; Centro Berlin in Bolivia with its population of 10 supplemented by 1,000 llamas; and the village of Berlin in Guinea, which some believe was named in memory of a night of passion in the German capital.

Repeatedly crossing borders and time zones we experience a snapshot of life in each of these Berlins over the course of 24 hours.

Photo: Berlin Ohio courtesy of Berlin Producers

Worldwide Berlin focuses on a few characters in each of the seven Berlins featured, showing aspects of their daily lives that illustrate the differences between their cultures and surroundings but also at times the similarities in their routines and experiences.

You have to wonder how the Club Mate drinkers of Berlin, Germany would enjoy the Mate tea from which it is derived, drunk in Centro Berlin in Bolivia, or indeed how the inhabitants of any of these other Berlins would react to some of the sights nobody bats an eyelid at in the Hauptstadt.